Trump’s opening gambit on climate deals, plus Theresa May: Britain And US Can “Lead Together Again”

Trump is rattling the climate cages

Meanwhile Trump is putting the environmental establishment off-guard — romping, as it were, through any semblance of normal. He is not playing by the usual rules: climate change is gone from the website and the EPA have been told to freeze all grants and contracts. As a negotiation technique, this is the hammer blow opening move. He is forcing those he wants to deal with to rewrite entirely what they expect they can get. A gambit. He is reminding them he is the boss, and that they can take nothing for granted, and that he is not afraid of them calling him names like: “a racist anti-science, flat Earth, climate denier”.

Trump rightly calculates that they have already called him all of the above, and they will continue to do so, no matter what he does. They don’t have much ammo, he knows it, and he’s getting them to show their hand, and betting that they haven’t got much left to fire. How big are those protests going to be? Will the public really care? (His popularity might go up.)

Trump is overloading the media. By doing everything at once, immigration, the environment, the TPP, the love-media will have to pick their target.

Trump administration tells EPA to freeze all grants, contracts“They’re trying to freeze things to make sure nothing happens they don’t want to have happen, so any regulations going forward, contracts, grants, hires, they want to make sure to look at them first,” said Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an industry-backed group that has long sought to slash the authority of the EPA.

So what is going on? If you are not familiar with the U.S. constitution, take a look at Article 2, The Executive Branch. Here is a good Summary. Excerpt of the key section:

Clause 1. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

Here the Framers spell out several of the president’s more important powers. First and foremost, he is commander-in-chief of the military. Second, he is the boss of the heads of all the civilian departments of government; the bit here about requiring their written opinions provides the constitutional basis for the cabinet. And third, he has the power to pardon individuals convicted of crimes.

Basically, the civilian departments such as EPA, USDA and NOAA now work for President Trump, with the Directors of these agencies working with the administration to further the President’s policies.

The leadership provided by our two countries through the special relationship has done more than win wars and overcome adversity. It made the modern world,” she will say.

“The institutions upon which that world relies were so often conceived or inspired by our two nations working together. It is through our actions over many years, working together to defeat evil or to open up the world, that we have been able to fulfil the promise of those who first spoke of the special nature of the relationship between us. The promise of freedom, liberty and the rights of man.”

So much has already changed. Only in November 2015 the same Theresa May as Home Secretary was considering whether to ban Trump from entering the UK over his divisive comments. She, clearly, has adapted to the Brexit-Trumpocene era. Can other world leaders do the same – (In Australia there’s no sign Turnbull or Bishop have any idea about going with the new flow — like dumping the TPP and doing one-on-one trade deals.).

The US and UK are talking about slashing tarriffs and making it easier for workers to move back and forward.

210 comments to Trump’s opening gambit on climate deals, plus Theresa May: Britain And US Can “Lead Together Again”

Now officials at the UN (United Nations) and UNAS (United “National” Academies of Sciences, including the UK’s Royal Society, the US NAS, and the Scandavian ones handing out fake Nobel and Crafoord Prizes for 97% consensus science) must be brought under of control and start to work for the benefit, rather totalitarian control, of all humanity.

It seems that Leftists cant contain thier anger – perfect opportunity to keep placing the spectre of Trump in their faces, and when they lash out ( and they will, like the scorpion and frog tale, they cant change…) they will melt down……

All we have to do is keep telling the truth – climate chnage is a lie. Its not scientifically provable. Its a Socialist attempt at an end run around Democracy.

Some leftists lamely say “but if you say its a lie, youre ignoring ” And my response is the IPCC is apolitical body, and so are these depts which now lie because they are more political than science……

Yes, OriginalSteve, nations and national Academies of Sciences were united under the UN on 24 OCT 1945 to save the lives of frightened world leaders from possible nuclear annihilation by inserting Weizacker’s flawed definition of “nuclear binding energy” into all textbooks of nuclear physics after WWII.

Instead of rejoicing that humanity has evolved and lives on the only known water-covered planet that orbits 1AU from an abundant source of energy in a pulsar that made elements, birthed the solar system, controls Earth’s climate and sustains our lives, . . .

The UN’s IPCC, the UNAS (United National Academies of Sciences), Al Gore and the EPA tried to scare the public with lies (obviously false claims) CO2 is a dangerous pollutant that threatens the survival of human life.

In 2017 Trump can quickly revive the scientific revolution by ordering the US NAS to publicly defend or denounce the landmark discoveries of the late Professor Paul Kazuo Kuroda (1917-2001), including the

Meanwhile the Interior Department (Parks and lands) kept sending out Tweets about climate change. Then Trump put a stop to that and some of the employees started a private (rouge) look-alike Twitter account to keep sending out climate propaganda. There is a deep rot that needs to be purged.

“A man arrested for allegedly assaulting police during the flag-burning melee at the “invasion day” march through Sydney is a Greens campaign manager who used to be a paid employee of the party.

Hayden Williams, 20, is also part of the anti-capitalist, anti-police, left-wing splinter faction in the NSW Greens, known as “Left Renewal”, Fairfax Media can reveal.

He was arrested on Thursday and charged with assaulting police, resisting arrest and malicious damage. He has been bailed to appeal in Downing Centre local court on February 14.

In a statement, NSW Police said he was arrested during the anti-Australia Day march from Redfern after a “participant allegedly attempted to ignite a flag”.

During the struggle to arrest Mr Williams, a male police officer injured his ankle and a female protester sustained head injuries. Both were taken to hospital.

His alleged involvement in the violent scenes has further polarised the Greens, with party opponents of Left Renewal saying on Friday that the faction has torn up the pacifist ideals of the wider movement.

The faction, which held its first public meeting in Redfern this week, has been a headache for Greens leader Richard Di Natale since Fairfax Media revealed it had established inside the party in December.

Left Renewal, which has vowed to “fight to bring about the end of capitalism”, caused further controversy by encouraging members and other Australia Day protesters to burn the flag, interrupt celebrations and graffiti public property.

Amid anger from Greens members in other states, Senator Di Natale has urged faction members to quit the party but NSW Senator Lee Rhiannon and state upper-house member David Shoebridge – who have stressed they are not members of Left Renewal – have defended its right to exist within the Greens.”

Waging war on science, engineering, freedom of speech, certain religions/races, and the economy (or just progress in general) is hardly the mark of a political party which genuinely supports and encourages “pacifist ideals” amongst its members.

Trump must tread a little more lightly. Even Obama could not fire career civil servants outright except in a situation like the illegal air traffic controller strike early in the Reagan administration but had to go to their bosses in the middle of the night to work whatever arrangement he wanted carried out. I don’t think Trump can afford to do the same. But there are aboveboard means to take care of even career civil servants. It just takes longer.

Remember how Campbell Newman got rid of Anna Blighs husband by putting him in charge of unwinding all the global warming BS he was charged with putting place. He resigned quick smart, no contract payout & believe he was also made to work his notice as well.

The window of Liberty is finally opened and the fresh air of freedom and rule of law is replacing the stale air of regressive totalitarian progressivism. There is much work to be done but we have a beginning that I thought I would never see. Finally 2+2=4 rather than 5 given sufficiently large values of 2.

I agree completely. A good start, in my biased opinion, would be to ask all government-funded scientists to either publicly defend or denounce the land-breaking discoveries of my research mentor, the late Professor Paul Kazuo Kuroda

“either publicly defend or denounce the land-breaking discoveries of my research mentor, the late Professor Paul Kazuo Kuroda”

Oliver,
I cannot do that! I simply do not have the specific skills required to do that! As something that should have ‘more’ funding, I agree! We need all the sources of power available! Dropping nukes on each other,is not humane, I still hope!

I disagree that it is scientifically defensible. For it to be scientific, it must be stated clearly and within context. The context must hold over the whole argument.

With the 2 not being specified as a decimal number, it is automatically an integer. Hence, 2+2=4 only! There is no such thing as a sufficiently large value of 2 to equal 5. As an integer 2 is only 2.

Had I specified 2R+2R=4R (with R indicating it is an inclusive real number rather than only a whole number) then for sufficiently large values of 2R, it could equal 5. Depending upon the rounding method you used.

I was trying to show, by a wry short hand example, how the post modernists typically re-frame their argument in mid stream of their argument. They start out by stating something that is generally accepted as true to get agreement and then shift context in an unspecified way. They do it in hopes of trapping you into agreeing with their transmogrified proposition and invalid conclusion.

It is by using this intellectual slight of hand that they have built the house of cards called “climate science”. You must parse any of their statements in full context of all their statements not to get tangled in their web of misdirection.

The opening window of Liberty is cutting through such chicanery. Once again things are what they are and not what they are called. Reason and common sense can come out of hiding and be used to find real answers to real problems. Then if anyone is offended by such things, they will simply have to understand their injured feelings are no longer a driving force for change.

2+2=5 for sufficiently large values of 2 is a perfectly scientifically defensible position.

Bob,

I think one of us must have gone through the wrong school system.

Without the decimal point and one or more digits to the right of it it to indicate fractional precision, integer precision is going to be assumed, indeed it will be thought mandatory by anyone I know. That may get relaxed in casual conversation and by those who’re innumerate or borderline, maybe even in jest as a few here have done from time to time. But taken seriously, no, there is no possibility of sufficiently large values of 2, only of 2.0 or 2.00…, etc. 2 = 2 = 2…= 2.

Otherwise maybe you’ll have to buy the outrageous proof I posted some years back that 2 = 1.

And even to say sufficiently large values of 2 given 2.0 is quite a stretch since the .0 is conclusive as to the exact value.

Where are those error bars when you need them?

Oh! Wait a minute. I know what happened to them. All the EPA folks are at those error bars every night since the election. Fermented climate change is powerful stuff — helps you forget the loss of your job very quickly. About the only thing it’s good for too.

In most computer programming languages I know 2 + 2 means integer 2 + integer 2 which can only mean integer 4. Except in “Forth” where the symbol 2 can mean anything you want to make it . Therefore 2.0 + 2.0 may mean what you assert @bobl. It’s all in the notation!

You should note, the context of the discussion had absolutely nothing to do with programming languages.
Thus your switch of context constitutes an invalid re-framing of the discussion in mid stream.

If symbols can mean anything, thought and communication becomes impossibly confused to the point of being non-functional. However, this is typically the purpose of those who re-frame (switch context) the discussion in mid stream. Their purpose is not to inform or explain, theirs is only to misdirect and confuse.

It is true that, in programming languages, variable labels, procedure labels, and object labels can be made to be anything within the bounds of the permitted syntax of the language.

However, if your goal is to write source code that can be readily understood by others and yourself in the future, it is necessary to use labels that describe the function or purpose of the thing labeled.

The error in Weizsacker’s definition of “nuclear binding energy” needs to be corrected ASAP because, if correct, Weizsacker’s “nuclear binding energy” would have reversed the natural direction of nuclear evolution from:

Its typical leftish trash – teaching relativity, rather than absolute truth about something as foundational as maths….it does however produce a bunch of befuddled and dumbed down kids….which is great if you want a planet run by dimwitted NWO worker bees….

My father amazed me once by working out the square root of a large number using pen and paper only. I started school in 1960 but by then we did not have to know how to do that. By comparison doing long division was a piece of cake!

Actually I liked the example in the linked article, where the student had to work out 32 – 12 the “new way”. Talk about making something easy so complicated. But that’s the way it is now. Everything has to be longer, more descriptive. Salesmen became account managers. Garbage collection is now “resource recovery”. You see it on the side of trucks: “ABCD Integrated Logistics Solutions”. What on Earth does that mean? I just chuckle at the absurdity of it all.

In the 1990s I needed to programme square roots on an 8 bit 4Mz 6502 microprocessor, with precison of three decimal places. It had to be in fixed point maths. It was a toss up whether to use Newton’s method or Taylor’s series. Taylor’s series lent itself better to recursive code in assembly language. That’s the sort of more advanced maths that was taught in middle years of high school in the later 1950s, the period of slide rules and 7 and 12 figure log tables.

Ian,
Now 75, school taught and examined on hand calculation of square roots of large numbers. Web did not have calculators.
Even in 1965, at CSIRO, I did analysis of variance manually by Fisher’s method using addition/subtraction as per text books.
By 1972, geophysical colleagues had developed complex models of geologically magnetic bodies perturbing the natural magnetic field. Far too large for manual but amenable to tedious Facit mechanical calculator.
Now I think that the easebofbthe canned program on PC has contributed toba decline of the rigour of thought. The new system resembles ‘near enough is good enough’ in some ways, while in the mechanical and manual days an error became a halt. But I’m sure you know these types of snippets.
Geoff

I was disappointed that we didn’t learn how to do square roots because I loved playing with numbers. However, I memorised all the perfect squares up to 1000 and could quickly work out the square root of any three digit number by narrowing in from a known starting point.

I go to use a cumbersome adding machine in grade 6 but they were only accurate until you did a typo – of course it wasn’t called that then. But they were fun to use.

Yes, after nations and national academies of sciences were united worldwide under the UN on 24 Oct 1945 to save the lives of frightened world leaders from possible worldwide nuclear annihilation by hiding the source of energy in atomic bombs – NEUTRON REPULSION – from the public.

We still do not know all the details on the ending of WWII, but it seems likely Stalin’s USSR troops captured the world’s total remaining inventory of atomic bombs from Japan’s atomic bomb plant at Konan, Korea after declaring war on Japan on 9 Aug 1945 and invading Manchuria and Korea.

The communist goals were entered into the Congressional record by Albert Herlong, Jr. (a Floridian who served in Congress from 1949-69).

1) US acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2) US willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3) Develop the illusion that total disarmament by the US would be a demonstration of “moral strength.”

4) Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5) Extension of long term loans to Russia and Soviet Satellites.

6) Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7) Grant recognition of Red China, and admission of Red China to the UN.

8) Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the Germany question by free elections under supervision of the UN.

9) Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the US has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10) Allow all Soviet Satellites individual representation in the UN.

11) Promote the UN as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the UN as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo).

I would disagree. Popper would say you could have many tests that verify the theory, but that does not demonstrate that the theory is true in every circumstance. What you need are predictive tests from the theory, that if failed would show the theory to be false. The central claims is that a doubling of CO2 levels will eventually cause global average temperatures to rise by 3C. The theory is so vague that it might seemingly be unfalsifiable pseudo-science. But there has been a test. Around the turn of the century the rate of increase in CO2 levels accelerated. The rate of warming should have shown some acceleration in response. But warming stopped. I have laid out the test, with plenty of diagrams to back up my claims in a post at the end of last month.
The evidence does not show that GHG theory is necessarily false, but it falsify the claim that global warming of the last century was driven by rises in greenhouse gas levels.

The first reading of Parliamentary Legislation took place today, to process with article 50. After the court loss a few days ago they are moving head with legislation to leave at a very fast pace. I was surprised. It will be interesting to see of the parliament will respect the will of the people.

“Asked by opposition Labor lawmaker Ed Miliband whether she would use her meeting with Trump this week to tell him not to withdraw from the agreement, May said: “The Obama administration obviously signed up to the Paris climate change agreement, we have now done that, I would hope that all parties would continue to ensure that that climate change agreement is put into practice.”

Now, imagine if we can get Russia on side and end the anxiety about a Russian threat to Eastern Europe.
The combination of USA, UK and Commonwealth working with a tamed Russia would isolate China, the Islamist extremists and influence the world, hopefully for the better.
Worth a try though May still has more doubts about Russia than Trump.
Putin is showing some signs of finding that sort of relationship attractive. He certainly doesn’t want to have to hold down hostile populations by military means indefinitely with a constant flow of body bags back to Moscow. Those days are probably over. The big powers have lost too many regional wars because of the drain on lives and wealth.

‘… working with a tamed Russia would isolate China, the Islamist extremists and influence the world …’

I protest, putting Beijing in the same basket as the sectarian nut cases is wrong headed, China is Australia’s biggest trading partner.

‘China and the United States are tied when Australians are asked which relationship is the more important to Australia: 43% nominate the US and 43% nominate China. China also has a clear lead over Japan as Australia’s best friend in Asia (30% say China and 25% say Japan is our ‘best friend in Asia’).

Lowe Institute 2016

——–

Otherwise your thesis is sound, the cold war is finally coming to an end, leaving the US military/industrial complex free to chart a more useful course.

I note that the controlled mainstream media hardly every makes reference to Russia any more. The fact that this has happened simultaneously and in so many different publications worldwide is the ultimate proof that there is no “free press” – if there ever was such a thing.

‘The Japanese have gone one better and have an article that supports Russia:’

Obama went out of his way to upset Japanese/ Russian relations, but it was a dismal failure. Abe is going to Moscow in April to sign off on a whole raft of innovative ideas and I’ll put this link up so you can get a broader picture.

Julie was probably at the Polo and didn’t read the complementary newspaper that came with brekky in bed.
It’s amazing though. The political landscape is changing so quickly since Trump & Brexit, local Oz politics seems positively glacial. And that’s quite apart from the obvious lack of any insight as to what that may mean in our future.
It’s quite surreal . .

Having just listened to Theresa May’s speech , I have my concerns , she in one paragraph talked about co operation to end world wide slavery , then in the very next gave her full support to the ” success ” of the EU , i’m sorry but in my opinion that’s a contradiction , how can you want to ban world slavery except for the people in the EU , when in my opinion the EU is based on the totalitarian feudal system set up by the Romans , we Brits voted out because we did not want to be RULED over by regulations ( or edicts ) forced upon us by unelected elites , why would Theresa May support that for other populations of EU nations .

Britain’s enconomy is not small
GDP is one indication, not entirely accurate as it is measured in $US and Russia and
Australia are shown as comparable. Then so much of China’s trade after Nixon is dependent
on trade with the US, as are so many like Korea.
If Britain alone and then France, even Italy leave the EU, that is a huge
slice of the EU. The problem is not the Common Market. It is the attempt by Germany to make it
a single political unit. They tried that before.

One point is that the US and UK together are 40% of the world’s trade, twice that of China.
Europe would be dealing with a joint US/UK team and one of these is only 40km from the EU. Hard to ignore
for a trade agreement.

If the UK also joins the US in junking the windmill economy, the pressure will be on.

I have a bright idea (not my own, google it) Why don’t New Zealand, Australia, Canada, England, and the United States of America unite in an Anglosphere of trade, military, and cultural cooperation. Other smaller nations would probably be eligible and eager to join. It is an idea whose time has come. Think, for even a minute, of the advantages.

Would you like another wild notion. Why don’t the USA and England lead a movement to ask Russia to join NATO. Think about it[snip].

Add India, South Africa, and you have the Commonwealth with guest appearances from Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, West Pakistan, Jamaica, Ireland. Yes, it is a huge group and the greatest force for peace and prosperity since the Roman Empire. The trick of the last seventy years is to call it colonialism and imperialism and denounce it, without having a replacement.

I think Trump needs to put Germany on notice. Millions of Americans and citizens of the UK, Canada, and other countries did not face off the Soviet Bear for decades to preserve West Germany only to see the result appear be turning into something like the GDR. When the government starts raiding the homes and jailing their citizens who’s only offense was to speak their mind about their governments immigration policy then there is a fundamental lack of real liberty. I spent nearly five years of my time in the Military in Germany during cold war. I found the German people to be kind and generous and that goes double for the Bavarians. In fact it took me awhile to resolve the dichotomy between what I saw and what they had done during WW II until I figured out the only answer is that all good people can be led astray to do the most horrible things if they are not on guard to protect their own fundamental rights AND THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS against all threats no matter how alluring the alternative may seem at the time.

With you El Gordo. Been to China many times on high level business. Some top guys were at pains to say that past Chinese wars were dominantly non-expansionist, mostly protecting their territory from invaders eg Japan in WWII.

RAH,
I made an error with place for comment. This one is about Germany. About 1990 I studied a private, large survey of names and addresses what we now call activists, though there were other issues like nuclear then. I followed the report’s findings ever since and now can see that a lot of the global warming activism has roots and push from Germany. Apart from the gerrmanic names on climate papers, there are known alarmist centres like Potsdam, Deutsche Bank environment group etc.
So yes, Germany needs a lecture, including one on alarmism.
Geoff

Reports claim that a US socialist billionaire funded over fifty of the inauguration protest marches, I have no doubts that he and his fellow traveller wealthy comrades will be plotting more trouble for POTUS Trump and propaganda to prop up their climate change agenda.

I dunno about these protests . .
Is it just me or are they having less impact with every successive one.
Consider that million woman’s march. What was that really about? It was made up of groups variously protesting Trump, equality for women and any number of splinter groups with their own thing going on. These were joined by men in solidarity who were accepted because the whole shamozzle was apparently entirely inclusive.
The ‘massive’ numbers were subsequently revised downwards until no one bothered any more. People walked around in knitted pussy hats and thought their voice was being heard . . apparently.
But the media dutifully covered it together with the obligatory vandals who take pleasure in breaking a street full of shop windows while wearing balaclavas.
Two days passes and what have we got? . . . *crickets*
I don’t have a good theory and I may well be getting old but back in the day, protests meant something . . and were about real issues. Things like anti-Vietnam war protests and civil rights . . that sort of thing.
Today we have nondescript protests where every man and his dog jumps on some more general band wagon . . as if to advertise their wares. There’s no Martin Luther King types among them and not even a John Lennon type doing a passive love in by staying in bed for a week with Yoko.
Perhaps since all the more importing issues have been dealt with, they’re running out of material. Perhaps the seemingly never ending stream of protests have desensitised the public.
Or maybe since they’ve become more commercial with funding from the likes of George Soros, GetUp and so many other groups that people recognise them as . . well, I hate to say it, but somewhat “fake protests”.
I reckon they’ve lost the tang of a real protest.

My prediction is that our political leaders are watching the unfolding events in the US and the UK very carefully and considering their options, which way to jump and how to explain where they land and why.

Lord Wentworth never had the intention of leading for the people and has never looked comfortable in his new role.

Maybe, deep down he has a conscience and he currently gives the outward impression of an uncertain man eating himself from the inside.

It will almost certainly need a new man to work in the new Trump reality, he doesn’t seem able to adjust.

Definitely we can’t have a vicDan clone or Bill in next, the people would find that revolting.

Recent redistributions of tax wealth to the needy have included the Victorian roads construction, Desalination plants and no doubt many others less visible acts of charity.

The tax payers and electricity users have had enough.

In 2017 in a supposedly civilized and “advanced” country far too many of us have been subjected to “blackouts” due to political mind games epitomized by the Victorian and South Australian union rule. Politicians who sell out to pressure groups in order to buy favour and votes are going to be more easily exposed in future.

The main question at the moment is how can we quantify the cost that renewables impose on our electricity accounts and get this information to the consumer in an easily divested format.

The main question at the moment is how can we quantify the cost that renewables impose on our electricity accounts and get this information to the consumer in an easily digested format

Yes. Really difficult information to aquire and be sure of its’ reliability – and that difficulty is no accident.

The only way I know is for the various power retilers to come clean, as they do indeed know. Most of them though, if not all, are scared of retribution. As the old saying goes: “Politicians have a very long memory”.

25 Jan: Yahoo. AFP: Kerry Sheridan: US scientists raise bar for sea level by 2100
In the last days of Barack Obama’s administration, US government scientists warned even more sea level rise is expected by century’s end than previously estimated, due to rapid ice sheet melting at the poles.
The report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) set the “extreme” scenario of global average sea level rise by 2100 to 8.2 feet (2.5 meters), up half a meter from the last estimate issued in 2012.

“We raised the upper limit of our scenarios,” lead author William Sweet told AFP.
“It is possible. It has a very low probability. But we can’t discount it entirely.”…
“We are not projecting anything. Everything is dependent on the amount of future heating, ocean and atmospheric heating,” explained Sweet…
Sweet said the report’s release was not planned to coincide with the end of the Obama presidency, or to precede the inauguration of Donald Trump…
“The timing might look suspect,” Sweet said.
“But no, this has actually been in the works for ***over a year.”https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-scientists-raise-bar-sea-level-2100-212408860.html

***and NOAA couldn’t predict then that there COULD be a change coming in Nov 2016?

Those weasel words again. If your theory doesn’t make a prediction that can be tested, you don’t have a valid theory – correct or otherwise.

Since you aren’t doing real science give your grant money back and get a job you are capable of doing. I would suggest cleaning out septic tanks, since it bears so much resemblance to what you have been doing to date.

26 Jan: SMH: Adam Gartrell: Greens descend into public brawl amid doubts over ‘invisible’ Richard Di Natale’s leadership
Bob Brown has intervened in a growing war over the future of the Greens, calling a sitting senator a ‘wrecker’ who was behaving like Tony Abbott.
The factional fight within the Greens is escalating into an all-out public brawl, with a senior member of Richard Di Natale’s team now openly questioning the party’s direction and prospects under his leadership.
NSW senator Lee Rhiannon has told Fairfax Media the party is at a “crossroads” and should channel the radical worker-driven policies of US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to re-energise supporters – but her comments have drawn fire from party elder Bob Brown, who has re-entered the political fray to label her a wrecker and the “Greens version of Tony Abbott”…
The public fight comes after the formation last month of a new far-left, anti-capitalist faction within the NSW Greens called Left Renewal…READ ONhttp://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/greens-descend-into-public-brawl-amid-doubts-over-invisble-richard-di-natales-leadership-20170125-gtyb3n.html

Environmental Protection Agency employees have not accepted Donald Trump’s victory and are still “coming to work in tears” more than two months after the election.

“At EPA headquarters, the mood remains dark,” ProPublica reported Wednesday. “A longtime career communications employee said in a phone interview Tuesday that more than a few friends were ‘coming to work in tears’ each morning as they grappled with balancing the practical need to keep their jobs with their concerns for the issues they work on.”

Trump’s victory has been tough for bureaucrats. The State Department held stress workshops after the election so they would not “become paralyzed by fear.” EPA employees were caught crying before, just after the election, as were White House aides. Energy Department employees were granted counseling. Sobbing staffers greeted Hillary Clinton on Capitol Hill a month after her loss.

The whole place seems to be a cathedral to the cult of Gaia. Closing it down and letting the states regulate conservation and pollution control looks to be the only sane answer.

Having seen how NSW “environmentalism” has forsaken the real environment and become merely a media player over the last four decades has caused me a lot of angst.

The last time I visited Katoomba the neglect of facilities and trails had not changed and more locally, along the coast from Merewether to Redhead we have been treated to way too many out of control, dangerous, bushfires.

Well it’s not an infinite pot of money (unless you run the ECB or Fed), so it is the same sort of call Jo has made in the past, IMO. Cut the political climate funding and channel it into useful stuff like medical research… the sciency stuff that saves lives.

26 Jan: Time Magazine: Justin Worland: Planet Earth’s ‘Doomsday Clock’ Lurches Closer to Midnight Thanks to President Trump
The planet moved significantly closer to a catastrophic event this week as Donald Trump assumed the U.S. presidency, according to a new report.
The planet’s Doomsday Clock is now two-and-a-half minutes to midnight, which represents a global catastrophe. It’s the closest the measure has been to midnight since the successful testing of hydrogen bombs in 1953. The new position represents a 30-second lurch forward from the previous position…

A group of nuclear scientists affiliated with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists determine when to move the clock in response to a number of threats from nuclear security to climate change. The formal report notes a slew of factors that contributed to the change including crumbling international relations, slow efforts to address climate change and declining global support for democracy.
“The most important contributing factor to moving the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight is the rise of Donald Trump,” said Derek Johnson, executive director of the Global Zero to eliminate nuclear weapons. “This is no time to ‘wait and see.’ We must act urgently.”…http://time.com/4650438/doomsday-clock-donald-trump-atomic-scientists/?xid=time_socialflow_facebook

PDF: 18 pages: 26 Jan: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: It is two and a half minutes to midnight
2017 Doomsday Clock Statement, Science and Security Board,
Editor, John Mecklin
Statement from the executive director:
…This year’s Clock deliberations felt more urgent than usual. On the big topics that concern the board, world leaders made too little progress in the face of continuing turbulence. In addition to the existential threats posed by nuclear weapons and climate change, new global realities emerged, as trusted sources of information came under attack, ***fake news was on the rise, and words were used in cavalier and often reckless ways…

Considerable thanks goes to our supporters including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, MacArthur Foundation, Ploughshares Fund, David Weinberg and Jerry Newton, as well as valued supporters across the year…
Rachel Bronson, PhD, Executive Director and Publisher, Chicago, IL

Science and security board biographies:
Sivan Kartha: He served as a Coordinating Lead Author in the preparation of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released in 2014, co-leading the chapter on Equity and Sustainable Development.
Susan Solomon: She served as co-chair for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fourth climate science assessment report, released in 2007. Time magazine named Solomon as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008…

Richard Somerville is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Research Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. He was a Coordinating Lead Author of the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); the IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize equally with Al Gore…

David Titley is a Professor of Practice in Meteorology and a Professor of International Affairs at the Pennsylvania State University, and the founding director of Penn State’s Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk…
After retiring from the Navy, Dr. Titley served as the deputy undersecretary of commerce for operations, the chief operating officer position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)…ETChttp://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/Final%202017%20Clock%20Statement.pdf

Hopefully, this is not too O/T, but I’m a nutty American. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.
Every time I see or hear of their clock I am put in mind of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. I don’t remember the time stamp, but there is the poor soul who is moving what resemble the hands of a clock to the positions idicated as lights flash on and off. At least what he was doiong had some meaning in the context of the movie.
My daughter just told me when she hears of the Doomsday Clock, she always think of Bender, the robot in Futurama shouting “We’re Do-o-o-omed!!”

26 Jan: Time Magazine: Justin Worland: Planet Earth’s ‘Doomsday Clock’ Lurches Closer to Midnight Thanks to President Trump
The planet moved significantly closer to a catastrophic event this week as Donald Trump assumed the U.S. presidency, according to a new report.
The planet’s Doomsday Clock is now two-and-a-half minutes to midnight, which represents a global catastrophe. It’s the closest the measure has been to midnight since the successful testing of hydrogen bombs in 1953. The new position represents a 30-second lurch forward from the previous position…

Even closer than when Reagan was elected?

The irony is, when Russia entered the Syrian civil war we were the closest. Then American troops were right next to Russian ones and one misstep, we would have been at midnight.

The election of Trump moved us back from the brink. But then the left will never admit their chicken hawks are what causes us to approach midnight.

The Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative is being shut down.

Here’s evidence that the Foundation really was less about charity than peddling influence, with foreign governments and businesses donating to curry favor with what they thought was a future president.

The Telegraph reports that Theresa May is going to abandon a Bill of Rights. Great. Britain created our legal system and many others. It is based on parliament made law, judge made law and ancient common law. The US uses a reverse system based on a Bill of Rights. The attempt to integrate these has produced a playing field for lawyers and no justice, so you have these Human Rights Commissions with no force in law but the ability to terrorise with costly legal actions, like our 18C. Walking away from the HRC in Australia alone would save millions and removing 18C would allow people to speak freely, still subject to the normal laws of the country on libel and slander.

We can only hope that the whole frameworks of oppressive EU and UN control of other countries vanishes, consigned to the dustbin of history, but especially the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a wealth redistribution by the UN using Climate control by governments. What a ridiculous notion. International Laws controlling the weather. It all has to go.

I have dealt with the Human Rights & Equal Opportunities Commission, a complainant alleged that she was overlooked for promotion while away on maternity leave. Her complaint was easily disproven when company records were reviewed including the timing when the appointment was made and that she was not qualified for the position or even employed in that area of employment.

A HREOC person phoned and requested that senior executives visit her city office as soon as possible to discuss the complaint and when I suggested that she get off her backside and travel to my office in the suburbs she was quite annoyed. A week later as arranged she arrived, her card title Investigator/Conciliator, a graduate Bachelor of Laws in her mid twenties. She was not happy when a female senior accountant joined us for the meeting. To cut a long and unprofessional list of demands and immature tantrums short, we agreed to disagree and she ignored our evidence. Another appointment was made by her a couple of weeks later and she arrived with a male colleague. Another round of denial on her part (he sat quietly observing) ended with a threat to take the company to the Tribunal unless we agreed to a conciliation meeting with the complainant. I did not agree and again pointed to our evidence. Three months later a letter arrived from the Commissioner responsible advising that the claimant had withdrawn her complaint.

We chose not to use our legal advisors however they had warned that the HREOC just wants names to publish as evidence of their good work and that we should offer a small sum in settlement to avoid the costs of attending the Tribunal, say $6K. As years passed it became clear that the Tribunal is a toothless Tiger and cannot enforce its own judgements and penalties, only a court of law can do that. So call their bluff if you are in the right and they cave in.

From what I read in the QIT case, the sum is usually $5K in go away money. I noted that the HRC received $350,000 like this, so 70 cases of extortion.

Half of the poor QIT students paid up front and others regretted not doing so, but to demand someone agree that they were racist when they were extremely anti racist was just too much. It is not about human rights. It is about getting $5K in cash for complaining and mainly helping to justify the existence of the HRC lawyers and their $4Million budget. It’s a wonder they don’t advertise for complainants with a promise of $5,000 tax free cash per complaint.

Sorry, not $4M. In the 2015/16 budget it was
Australian Human Rights Commission
Departmental appropriations Appropriation Bill $16M – – Receipts $7M $22M
That’s a lot of money needing justification for an organization with no force in law, only 18C.

So our $22,000,000 HRC needs Section 18C so they can pretend to be doing something to preserve the fundamental Human right not to be offended, insulted or even upset a little. For $5-6 thousand dollars in cash.

Climate change is NOT a wealth distribution vehicle, it is a mechanism to fund the UN via a tax-by-treaty scheme by forcing citizens of first world countries to pay the UN for “Carbon” essentially bypassing national control over the money flow to the UN – IE via the treaty. The Australian ETS was all about the 100 Million that had to go to the UN which was supposedly to be redistributed (After the UN raids it for “administrative costs”). The redistribution excuse is only to hide the real aim of skimming the till to fund the UN’s world government aspirations.

Tax by treaty schemes are a violation of national sovereignty, it’s Treason.

26 Jan: Time Magazine: Bryan Walsh: Existential risks: Why Doomsday Is Closer Than You Think
Two and a half minutes to midnight. That’s the new setting of the Doomsday Clock, the iconic symbol that attempts to show just how close humanity is to inadvertently ending the world…
And the decision was made in part because of the words of a man who has been President for less than a week: Donald Trump…

It is meant to move the public to action—not to accurately represent how close humanity is to doomsday—which, unless you can see the future, isn’t calculable anyway. Better to think of the Clock as an indicator of trends, not a measurement of absolute risk—and few people would argue that the world hasn’t gotten at least 30 seconds more dangerous during 2016, a year that saw the election of an unstable global actor in Trump, and was the hottest on record to boot…

Today the Doomsday Clock is meant to reflect more than just the threat of nuclear weapons. Climate change is considered a major risk as well, and while the record on 2016 was somewhat optimistic—work on the Paris Agreement to reduce carbon emissions and continued and renewable energy kept growing—we’re not doing anywhere near enough to avert a dangerously warm and unstable future…
Including those newer threats, though, risks muddying the pure symbolism of the Doomsday Clock. As Will Boisvert wrote for the Breakthrough Journal last year, climate change is a poor fit for the Clock…READ ONhttp://time.com/4650303/doomsday-clock-nuclear-war-donald-trump/

above has link to this:

Time Magazine: This Week in History: TIME Magazine on Air Pollution (Jan 27, 1967)
Lily Rothman: 50 Years Ago This Week: Worry Over Climate Change Has Already Begun
Week 4: Jan. 27, 1967
Illustrated with several pages of color photos, this cover story traced the growing awareness that “belching smokestacks that long symbolized prosperity” were becoming a “source of irritation,” or worse…
(As the magazine noted, this disaster would at least solve one problem: “Since this would raise ocean levels more than 100 feet, it would effectively drown the smog problems of the world’s coastal cities.”)
What was to be done?
Frank Stead, a high-ranking California state public-health official, thought he knew. It was “clearly evident,” he told TIME, that by 1980 the gasoline engine had to be completely replaced by electric power, and that in order to get there California would have to declare that gas-powered vehicles were banned in the state after 1980…ETChttp://time.com/4635530/50-years-ago-air-pollution/

“In Australia there’s no sign Turnbull or Bishop have any idea about going with the new flow ”

Australian politicians of both parties have been controlled by the American establishment for so long that they cannot quickly adapt to the idea of an American President who doesn’t follow the establishment line.

If they ignore the new Trump era they will undoubtedly disappear from our political landscape. Goodbye to the likes of Turnbull, Shorten and the Greens. Although they don’t know it yet they are history.

Hope not required – it’s a sure thing. The more the left act out their pure hatred towards anyone who refuses to follow their evil doctrine the easier it will be for those with even the lightest of leftist tendencies to be lost in the annals of history.

u may recall NYT’s Andrew Revkin has moved to ProPublica where he’s getting very few comments:

25 Jan: ProPublica: Andrew Revkin: Trump’s Team at EPA Vetting ‘Controversial’ Public Meetings and Presentations
The mood is dark as Trump takes over the environmental agency he pledged to reduce to “little tidbits.”
The week had begun with employees in communications roles at the EPA telling ProPublica and others they expected the climate change section on the agency’s web site would be taken down.

Uncertainty about the fate of some agency information on greenhouse gases is not only upsetting scientists and some within the EPA, but it also has prompted associations of natural gas companies and utilities that rely on EPA data on greenhouse gas emissions to take precautions. Politico Pro on Wednesday published excerpts from emails circulated to members of the American Gas Association and Edison Electric Institute recommending that members not rely on agency archives. A gas-industry official confirmed the details in an interview with ProPublica.

At EPA headquarters, the mood remains dark. A longtime career communications employee said in a phone interview Tuesday that more than a few friends were “coming to work in tears” each morning as they grappled with balancing the practical need to keep their jobs with their concerns for the issues they work on…

To be sure, the EPA is an agency where information has been tightly controlled for many years, including under the Obama administration, which was harshly criticized by the Society of Environmental Journalists in 2013 for having “taken secrecy to a new level.”…

Myron Ebell, who ran the transition at the EPA but has returned to directing environment and energy policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the purpose of the review was straightforward.
“The idea is, let’s make sure there aren’t any grants in progress going to things we don’t approve of,” Ebell said.

11 Jan: ProPublica: Andrew Revkin: Will Trump’s Climate Team Accept Any ‘Social Cost of Carbon’?
The nation’s top science panel has just sketched a clearer way to set a fair price today for cutting tomorrow’s climate risks. Some of Trump’s advisers say the price should be zero.
The contention arises because the social cost of carbon underpins justifications for policies dealing with everything from power plants to car mileage to refrigerator efficiency. The carbon valuation has already helped shape 79 regulations.

The strongest sign of a coming challenge to the social cost calculation came in a post-election memorandum from Thomas Pyle, who was then president of the industry-funded American Energy Alliance and Institute for Energy Research and who now leads the Trump transition team for the Department of Energy. In the memo, he predicted policies resulting in “ending the use of the social cost of carbon in federal rule makings.”

Outright elimination of such a calculation is highly unlikely, according to interviews with a range of experts. The practice of estimating the economic costs and benefits of most government regulations began under an executive order of President Ronald Reagan in 1981…

You cannot calculate a “social cost” of carbon, without also looking at the social BENEFIT of carbon.

Given that basically all civilised society was built using carbon intensive manufacturing,

….. and continues to exist because of the use of carbon…..

and apart from particulate matter and a few minor pollutants (which can be very well controlled in commercial scale electricity production), the burning of carbon for electricity and transport is the absolute mainstay of all developed societies…..

… and increased atmospheric CO2 is actually a massive benefit to the planet..

…. I would say the Social BENEFIT of carbon would probably outweigh the social cost of carbon by maybe 100,000 to 1.

It demonstrates how tenuous their position was in the first place. Everyone following the person in front, when suddenly the person in front changed direction completely. Now they’re all lost and on a one-way political dead-end.

Like Lemmings at the brink of the cliff, wanting to go forward but not sure how to do it with no-one in front leading.

That’s why many of the left are self destructing and others are running around like headless chickens crashing into anything and causing much mayhem. If they keep doing it, which appears very likely the public will eventually wake up to their evil tendencies and treat the left like a cancer. History goes in cycle and we are now entering another cycle. The transition won’t be pretty but it’s inevitable. Whether the next cycle will be better or worse than the previous one is debatable. At least we have avoided a tyranny of the left, at least for now.

Surely Turnbull could save his neck (and the baseload generation industry in Australia) simply by amending section 6 of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Large-scale Generation Shortfall Charge) Act 2000 to lower the LRET charge from $65.00 per MWh to something close to zero. Too bad if this results in solvency problems for the wind and solar industries.

25 Jan: NYT: The Interpreter: Max Fisher: Trump Prepares Orders Aiming at Global Funding and Treaties
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing executive orders that would clear the way to drastically reduce the United States’ role in the United Nations and other international organizations, as well as begin a process to review and potentially abrogate certain forms of multilateral treaties.
The first of the two draft orders, titled “Auditing and Reducing U.S. Funding of International Organizations” and obtained by The New York Times, calls for terminating funding for any United Nations agency or other international body that meets any one of several criteria…
The order calls for then enacting “at least a 40 percent overall decrease” in remaining United States funding toward international organizations…
For example, the Paris climate agreement or other environmental treaties deal with trade issues but could potentially fall under this order…
Taken together, the orders suggest that Mr. Trump intends to pursue his campaign promises of withdrawing the United States from international organizations. He has expressed heavy skepticism of multilateral agreements such as the Paris climate agreement and of the United Nations…https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/us/politics/united-nations-trump-administration.html?rref=politics&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Politics&pgtype=Multimedia&_r=1

26 Jan: UK Express: Will Kirby: Trump to ‘WITHDRAW from climate & environmental accords along with UN funding CUTS of 40%’
Speaking on (BBC) Newsnight, New York Times analyst Max Fisher said the White House is mulling over two executive orders which would see a massive reduction in US involvement with international partners on a range of issues…
In terms of climate change, Fisher believes the Paris Climate Agreement “would be in the crosshairs” following Trump’s scepticism during his election campaign.
Fisher added: “It’s not unreasonable to expect him to use this as a mechanism to withdraw from it”.http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/759019/president-donald-trump-united-nations-states-withdraw-climate-environment-UN-funding-cut

It just occurred to me that the late Rob Ford was the new father of this movement.

“We’ve seen this trend elsewhere. The idea that it’s exclusively people from the right that are attracted to the populist message is incorrect,” Bricker said, pointing to former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, the successful Brexit referendum in the U.K. and America’s election of President Donald Trump as examples.

Ford. Brexit. Trump. There’s a natural progression here. In the vote soon to come, we’ll have a real, perhaps greatly disturbing, measurement of how wide the gap has grown between the castes of those on the inside and those on the out. Trump hasn’t created this moment — the energies that have powered his success so far have all been external to him. He’s just the aerial. The lightening has been supplied by a politics that, both in style and substance, very many people have come to despise.

26 Jan: Daily Beast: Asawin Suebsaeng: Dems to David Brock: Stop Helping, You Are Killing Us
Democrats know they need someone to lead them out of the wilderness. But, they say, that someone is not David Brock.
Many in the party—Clinton loyalists, Obama veterans, and Bernie supporters alike—talk about the man not as a sought-after ally in the fight against Trumpism, but as a nuisance and a hanger-on, overseeing a colossal waste of cash. And former employees say that he has hurt the cause…
Brock, founder of the media watchdog Media Matters for America and liberal super PACs American Bridge and Correct the Record, has volunteered himself to lead the reconstruction, vowing to “kick Donald Trump’s ass.”…
During Trump’s inauguration weekend, Brock held a conference for activists, politicians, and donors at a resort in South Florida to pitch his grand vision. All but one of the candidates currently running to chair the Democratic National Committee attended, conspicuously missing the Women’s March on Washington on Saturday…
“His ability to produce wins for Democrats is nonexistent,” Jeff Weaver, former campaign manager for Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential run, told The Daily Beast. “He does not have the kind of understanding of what kind of coalition you have to bring together to win national races — that’s his fundamental problem.”…
“People are free to question my motives, but it should be pretty clear by now that the groups that I’ve created are committed to a more progressive America,” Brock told The Daily Beast in a phone interview on Wednesday. “I’m interested in building third-party organizational capacity to resist and oppose Donald Trump. I think that should be everybody’s goal on the left, to destroy Donald Trump, not to destroy each other.”…READ ONhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/26/dems-to-david-brock-stop-helping-you-are-killing-us.html

26 Jan: Hollywood Reporter: Marisa Guthrie: Fox News’ Sean Hannity Declares “Journalism in America Is Dead” (Q&A)
“Donald Trump is at his core incredibly, intuitively, extremely bright,” says the anchor as he clears up misconceptions about the “counter-puncher” president. “He will never, ever, ever usually hit first.”
Sean Hannity has been among President Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters. He saw the “movement” fomenting early on, owing, he says, to his working-class roots, which go back to tender years as an 8-year-old paper boy and continued into adulthood when he spent a decade working as a contractor. “That’s 20 years of my life was hard, blue-collar work,” he says. “And while now I am in this group of people frankly that are all overpaid in media — let’s be honest, especially for the jobs that half these people do, they don’t deserve anything.”
But the point is, he continues, “they do not connect with those people.” …

So much has already changed. Only in November 2015 the same Theresa May as Home Secretary was considering whether to ban Trump from entering the UK over his divisive comments.

How interesting.

The old sheriff promised to essentially take names and kick butts, “Accomplish, accomplish, accomplish he said,” but didn’t deliver so no one would believe or trust him. Not even after being in office for 8 years did he do what he said he would except for the misnamed Affordable Care Act (which is in serious financial trouble already).

Now the new sheriff is in town after promising to take names and kick butts, “Accomplish, accomplish, accomplish,” he also said but he’s actually doing it. And the whole world sat up and took notice of him. And he’s been in office less than a full week.

What a great lesson about the importance of actually doing as you say you will. World, teach this lesson to your children, teach it until they learn it, not in their heads but in their gut. Teach it so they can never forget it.

“The One” in fact did many important things that were opposite of what he had indicated before. During his first campaign Obama said the Bush was unpatriotic for increasing the national debt so much. Then in 8 years he went about doubling it. When a senator Obama (and Hillary) voted for the law that Trump is now implementing to build the wall. There’s more.

Why is it cooler at higher (earthly) altitudes? I am not even thinking about extremely high Himalayan type altitudes but even places like Mt Macedon in VIC that is a mere 615m tall and noticeably cooler than surrounding low altitude areas.

This question is very commonly asked online and there are a lot of different answers but I’m not sure they are correct.

The answer is in the gas laws. Gravitational potential compresses the atmosphere with higher pressure, density, and temperature at lower altitudes. Compressing a gas ‘always’ increases it temperature; as the reduced mean free path increases the rate of change of individual gas molecule change in momentum (delta mv) even with the same rms velocity. Gas pressure is a great way to store power for later use (see air tools). The reason for the lack of thermal conductivity to (lower temperatures) at altitude, is the same as the reason for the higher pressure surface air does not expand outward! That is what the force of gravity does to its surround atmosphere!
Just go ask your local academic physicists what “gravity” is! If that doesn’t drive them [snip] crazy, ask them what “temperature” is!

Temperature in the troposphere decreases with height. That is an observation of average conditions ,but it is not always true.

Doug Cotton (now banned) and Stephen Wilde say that it due to the effect of gravity and the well established gas laws: PV=nRT. According to their explanation the temperature, at least in the troposphere, should decrease at the rate of 9.8C/km.

It seems clear to me now that the normal lapse rate (that is what the temperature profile with height is called) closely approximates the SALR (saturated adiabatic lapse rate). It makes no difference if the air is going up or down. At lower altitudes that is about 6.5C/km

So far I have not found a satisfactory explanation of the observed lapse rate.

“Quite a good question David, Temperature in the troposphere decreases with height. That is an observation of average conditions ,but it is not always true.

True, If not for convection Earth’s lapse rate would be minus 14-17°C/km (calculated), hard to stop atmospheric convection!! With convection, but no phase change the lapse is measured to be approx minus 10°C/km. With the atmospheric airborne water content, the lapse is as low as 1/2 that. Daytime insolation is converting low level haze clouds to water vapor (WV) with little change in temperature at (2500 joules/gm) clouds to gas. At night time the reverse happens with latent heat of condensing WV to clouds powering huge EMR exitance to space. No precipitation is required.
All the best! -will-

Temperature decreases with height along a lapse rate slope simply due to the distance between molecules increasing as pressure reduces. Pressure reduces because the weight of higher molecules declines.
As molecules move apart their kinetic energy (warmth) is transformed to potential energy (not warmth). The potential energy arising from the moving apart is way greater than that produced from simply lifting the molecule upwards against gravity.
The gas laws describe the relationship between volume and temperature that gives rise to the lapse rate.
In reality, convection introduces deviations from the ‘ideal’ lapse rate slope all over the place but for the globe as a whole it all has to average out to the ‘ideal’ lapse rate slope otherwise the atmosphere will be lost.

If it had no energy to move and bump into other adjacent molecules, nitrogen, hydrogen etc, it would simply fall to Earth and lay on the dirt.

At some great height, up near where my new 787 was recently flying, the temperature seems to reflect the lesser pull of gravity, it was minus 38C at 10.5 to 11.0 km.

In any engineering analysis of This sort the important “pull” factor is the temperature differential between ground level and above.

Earths surface is say 15C but space can be given a nominal temperature of 1.6C ° above absolute zero ie about minus 271.56°C. The differential is 286.56C°, that’s a lot of pull for Earth’s surface energy to resist.

As Peter explains, the equation pv=nRT goes a long way towards explaining the effect but since gravity effects are going to be slightly less at altitude.

The overall effect of the temperature gradient, changing gravitational pull with height and the gas law mentioned is that the gas must either lose temperature or increase in volume or, as is the case, achieve an amicable change to both.

Eventually there will be such low temperatures that the gas molecules don’t have the energy to support any more above them and the atmosphere ceases to exist.

I have been to the to the tourist centre at the top of the Jungfrau mountains at about 14,000 ft up.

It was bitterly cold and I had the impression that if this was summer then winter would be much worse.

So, in summary, altitude induces laziness in molecules of gas, they collide less often and have a lower “temperature” than their mates at sea level because of the lowered effect of gravity.

Hope that this is of some use but I think that Will might find things in it to correct.

ps. The Sun and the Earth itself are sources of energy to stimulate gases and this happens mostly at ground and sea levels.

“Hi David, The comments by Peter and Will contain useful info. Another thing to consider is the equation F=mg.”

OK Keith, that is a ‘trivial’ way of expressing whatever ‘g’ may be. That is but a mathematical expression of why one ‘m’ may want to get together with another ‘m’ and perhaps ‘mess around a bit’, perhaps producing (2m+Δm) That would only attract another ‘m’ for some sort of threesome (3m+2Δm+ΔΔm), et-cetera et-cetera!
What may planetary ‘g’ be, with all that ‘m’ against atmospheric gas (divorcee) ‘m’ that only want to be as far away from any other ‘m’ as can be! Just how does planetary ‘g’ (many, many ‘ms’) force poor atmospheric divorcees into abject slavery?
All the best! -will-

27 Jan: AP: Official: Trump wants to slash EPA workforce, budget
By MICHAEL BIESECKER and SETH BORENSTEIN
VIDEO: 2mins04secs Myron Ebell
Myron Ebell said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press that Trump is likely to seek significant reductions to the agency’s workforce – currently about 15,000 employees nationwide. Ebell, who left the transition team last week, declined to discuss specific numbers of EPA staff that could be targeted for pink slips.
Asked what he would personally like to see, however, Ebell said slashing the agency’s size by about half would be a good start.
“Let’s aim for half and see how it works out, and then maybe we’ll want to go further,” said Ebell, who has returned to his position as director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
The conservative think tank in Washington opposes “global-warming alarmism”…
Though he kept specific recommendations he made to the White House confidential, Ebell suggested it was reasonable to expect the president to seek a cut of about $1 billion from the EPA’s roughly $8 billion annual budget…
Ebell said Tuesday the purge is necessary because EPA’s leaders under President Barack Obama “politicized” global warming and allowed activists within the agency to publish “junk science.”…READ ALLhttp://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRUMP_EPA?SITE=MYPSP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-01-26-17-46-34

26 Jan: USA Today: Glenn Harlan Reynolds: Trump is playing with the press: Glenn Reynolds
He’s gaslighting them and they fall for it every time.
(Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors)
They’re taking the bait because they think he’s dumb, and impulsive, and lacking self-control — but he’s the one causing them to act in ways that are dumb and impulsive, and demonstrate lack of self-control…
The killer counter-move for the press isn’t to double down on anti-Trump messaging. The counter-move is to bolster its own trustworthiness by acting (and being) more neutral and sober, and by being more trustworthy. If the news media actually focused on reporting facts accurately and straightforwardly, on leaving opinion to the pundits, and on giving Trump a clearly fair shake, then Trump’s tactics wouldn’t work…http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/01/26/white-house-press-media-donald-trump-glenn-reynolds-column/97042872/?siteID=je6NUbpObpQ-JsZXwiUTGBVRumNocL1wEw

26 Jan: HeatSt: Emily Zanotti: Inventor of Fake News Dan Rather Starts Online Campaign to Combat Fake News
Dan Rather, the former CBS News anchor turned media critic, says that he’ll lead the charge against “fake news”
Rather, who has amassed a huge social media following becoming a harsh critic of Donald Trump’s campaign and, now, administration, says he will try to translate that grassroots upswell into a real life fight against “alternative facts.” The project is called “News & Guts” and Rather says it will provide an important check on media, and “demand better” from news outlets.
“In an era of fake news, false equivalence, and too much fluff, let’s take a stand together to demand better, and bring attention to all those doing great work,” Rather noted in his post announcing the project.
Rather says News and Guts will also feature original reporting, from a trustworthy, respectable group of reporters, led by the news man himself.
Of course, Rather has plenty of experience with fake news. Perhaps he’s counting on his own unique familiarity with the phenomenon to help him better identify when the media commits fatal errors…
News and Guts has around half a million followers so far, but has not yet released its first in-depth investigation. They say that they plan to begin their reporting on President Trump very soon.https://heatst.com/politics/inventor-of-fake-news-dan-rather-starts-online-campaign-to-combat-fake-news/

But you can fool Dan Rather all the time… …or so close to it that it doesn’t matter. I suppose one more effort to topple Trump will never be noticed alongside the others already going on. Alternative facts indeed. How about alternative people? What planet have all these humanity savers been living on? Certainly not here.

If US climate scientists want to march, let ‘em. All it will do is drag a previously closed ‘debate’ right out into the open, which is exactly where they DON’T want it to be, because when there’s a debate, sceptics win.

heading back to nadal/dimitrov, but one final comment, as jo mentioned Trump’s popularity might go up.
woke up to Eric Boehm of Reason on 2GB overnight program still talking about FakeNewsMSM 40% favourability figure for Trump as he was inaugurated.
Rasmussen had him at 52% from memory. as they say, a week is a long time in politics, especially if u r busy implementing all your campaign promises.
Trump moved up to 56, then 57, and now 59, at Rasmussen:

25 Jan: Investors.com: John Merline: Here’s One Poll The Press Doesn’t Want You To See
As President Obama left the White House, the mainstream press was falling over itself proclaiming how popular he was…
Yet despite the media’s fixation with polls, the press completely buried one of the more newsworthy poll findings — a Gallup report that came out last Friday, which took a final look at the President Obama’s popularity over his eight years in office…
That poll found that Obama’s overall average approval rating was a dismal 47.9%.
Only three presidents scored worse than Obama since Gallup started doing these surveys in 1945: never-elected Gerald Ford (47.2%), one-termer Jimmy Carter (45.4%), and Harry Truman (45.4%).
Obama even did worse overall than Richard Nixon, whose average approval was 49%, and was less popular overall than George W. Bush, who got an average 49.4%…
That sounds newsworthy, doesn’t it? But you’d never know this if you relied on the mainstream press for information. That’s because not one of them reported on Gallup’s finding.
It took the conservative CNS News to break the media embargo. It reported on Gallup’s findings on Monday, and its story got picked up by the influential Drudge Report. After that, a few other conservative news and blog sites reported the findings.
Beyond that: total media blackout…
Hiding news that doesn’t fit an ideological or a partisan agenda is perhaps the worst form of media bias. And it’s one more reason the public holds the press is such low esteem.http://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/news-flash-obama-was-an-historically-unpopular-president/

Absolutely correct regarding Trumps negotiation. Also not that he knows how to manipulate the news cycles by changing topics every day or so along with announcements regarding what’s upcoming. Sort of like watching a series of movie trailers along with announcements of sequels in the works.

What a good wealth creation scheme, invest in a wind turbine business, government subsidy guaranteed operating profits, life of turbines about 15-20 years so write off the turbines against profit and when worn out abandon them. Meanwhile invest in coal and plan to invest in new desperately needed coal/gas fired power stations when voters/ consumers are furious and demand action to lower electricity prices.

Trump is forcing a series of unsolved issues to be discussed and thought about by the general public, breaking the [snip] liberal in the bubble approach to policy (no discussion of facts, all emotional, if you do not agree with flawed/irrational policies you are a Nazi/denier, and so on.)

The Obama administration has made almost every US problem worst.

Obama’s popularity would be in the single digits if the press had critically and accurately covered his administration and the US unresolved issues.

The US has a $800 billion/year trade deficit and a $20 Trillion accumulated deficit. The US has 11 million illegal long term ‘visitors’.

The word ‘immigration’ is when a person(s) applies to enter a country for a long term where if the conditions are meet after a period of time, the person(s) can apply for citizenship.

In almost all developed countries there are rules and enforced laws for legal immigration to encourage win-win outcomes for immigrates and existing citizens.

Trump has stated he is a strong support of legal immigration.

Madness and chaos, is when people enter a country illegally, when massive amounts of drugs enter a country when there is a porous border.

The height of liberal [[snip] foolishness] is the so-called catch and release (illegal US ‘visitors’ who commit crimes are released, rather than be turned over to the Federal agency for expulsion) in ‘sanctuary’ cities.

Fake News is the foundation of the Liberal paradigm.

Fake news and propaganda is required to push CAGW and the liberal agenda which does not work, which benefits insiders, not the general public.

An example of the peak of the fake news blogs is the Liberal/CAGW surrogate fake news in Yahoo World ‘News’ and Yahoo ‘Science’. Have a look and see how many fake news articles you can find. It is truly astonishing.

Yahoo ‘science’ and Yahoo world news runs a steady stream of fake news articles from fake news outlets such as “Business Insider” in addition to the old standby fake news outlets such as Huffington Post.

You may ask: What about academic freedom for government research scientists? Forget about it, it doesn’t exist. Scientists working in government labs, agencies, etc. work on scientific problems or technologies that further the administrations interests. Does this mean that it is legitimate for them to torque scientific findings in the direction of the administrations interests? No. Rather, it means that government employed scientists shall now work on projects that are of interest to the Trump administration.

Climate change science was/is driven by politics and not ‘science’.

So the battle is not CO2 or whatever but collectivism etc versus liberty/freedom.